An Extraordinary Year in Education

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Dear Colleagues,

This has been another extraordinary, and extraordinarily trying, year in American education, as schools and colleges struggled to rekindle learning amid recurring Covid outbreaks, sinking test scores, mounting student social and emotional needs, and controversy over school openings, masks, vaccinations, and the teaching of racial history and social justice—bringing the culture wars cascading into the nation’s classrooms once again.

A new administration arrived in Washington with new educational priorities, convincing Congress to spend billions to help the education sector respond to the Covid crisis, improving the prospects for recovery but placing new demands on policymakers and practitioners to spend the unprecedented federal largesse wisely.

FutureEd has sought to help education leaders navigate these challenges over the past year with independent analysis and innovative ideas on a range of policy questions, resulting in more than 120 publications. With 2022 only weeks away, we thought we would recap some of that work in our last newsletter of 2021.

Responding to the Pandemic
Covid-19, of course, dominated education policy again in 2021 with states and districts focused on reopening schools and helping students recover academically. In response, FutureEd:

Analyzed Congressional Covid relief totaling nearly $190 billion for K-12 schools
Summarized and analyzed states’ Covid-relief spending plans
Created a Covid Relief Playbook highlighting 18 evidence-based practices for states and school districts to spend their federal Covid-relief funds effectively
Gathered perspectives from a dozen FutureEd research advisors and senior fellows on how schools should prioritize their responses to the Covid crisis
Worked with the Education Trust and Education Reform Now to produce draft federal and state guidance for high-quality tutoring initiatives to address students’ lost learning opportunities
Partnered with EveryDay Labs to report on the deepening student absenteeism crisis and offered recommendations for reengaging students
Explored ways to respond to students refusing to go to school in an interview with University of Illinois at Chicago clinical psychologist Patricia Graczyk
Released recommendations for using federal relief aid to support students' and educators' mental and physical health, in collaboration with the Healthy Schools Campaign, AASA: The School Superintendents Association, and Kaiser Permanente's Thriving Schools
Published interviews and commentary on topics ranging from how to best support students experiencing homelessness during the pandemic to summer programs that students want to attend and the surprising consequences of the rise in failing grades
FutureEd Research Advisor Andrew Ho of Harvard outlined smart ways to use standardized testing during the pandemic
Senior Fellow Amanda Fernandez, CEO and co-founder of Latinos for Education, made the case for effective learning pods for underserved students

On the Potomac
The new year brought a new team at the U.S. Education Department, as well as changes in Congressional leadership on education committees. To inform the work of the new national leaders, FutureEd:

Provided the incoming Biden administration with a series of federal policy recommendations
Worked with The Education Trust, the Center for American Progress, and Education Reform Now to draft recommendations on tutoring programs for federal officials
Tracked Biden’s appointments to the U.S. Education Department and White House education roles
Profiled incoming Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
Profiled new members on Congressional education committees
Made recommendations to the Biden administration on revised Title IX rules for college sexual misconduct
Published a Q&A capturing a senior Education Department official’s guidance on federal relief spending

The Teaching Profession
The pandemic has disrupted traditional school staffing strategies, put tremendous pressure on teachers, and produced warnings of severe staffing shortages. In response, we worked with EducationCounsel to produce a series of reports to address these challenges, including:

A nuanced analysis of teacher shortages across the country and how best to address them
Innovative staffing and scheduling strategies that emerged during the pandemic and that can be used going forward
A close look at the comprehensive, data-driven hiring strategy that is helping the District of Columbia Public Schools develop a more effective and diverse teaching workforce

We also:

Explored the shortage of substitute teachers in an interview with Amanda von Moos, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Substantial
Examined the troubling condition of teacher pension systems and strategies to improve them
Made recommendations for strengthening the teacher pipeline in webinars and commentaries in Education Next, The 74 and The Hill

Student Assessments
We continued to explore new, more effective and more equitable ways to assess students during the pandemic and beyond, through:

A report on the nation’s fractured early learning assessment landscape
A Washington Post Magazine profile of the nascent movement to replace grades in high school with a more comprehensive way of capturing students' experiences
A report on ways to introduce equity indicators into the school-performance equation and their implications for students, educators, and policymakers
Bruno Manno of the Walton Foundation and FutureEd Senior Fellow Lynn Olson made a case for a new education agenda that abandons the “bachelor’s degree or bust” mentality in favor of multiple post-secondary pathways
Bryan Hassel, co-president of Public Impact and Greg Lippman, CEO of ACE Charter Schools, outlined a new method of measuring how well schools serve the highest-needs students
Roby Chatterji of the Center for American Progress highlighted ways to address racial disparities in access to advanced coursework

The Year Ahead
FutureEd is launching a major new initiative on Covid-relief spending in the coming year and new work on the future of school reform, gifted education, the parent revolution in public education and other topics as we mark our fifth anniversary. It’s hard to overstate the challenges the education sector faces in the months and years ahead. Social justice and the nation’s economy demand that schools teach more students than ever to high standards—even as the dislocations of the pandemic, the disruptions of the culture wars, and the intensifying psychological toll on students of social media and the climate crisis make the task increasingly difficult. Yet there is really no choice but to stay with the work. We can't afford to fail.

The good news is that nation’s many great schools point to what’s possible. Indeed, as a tough year ends, we’re thankful to the millions of educators who light the path of opportunity for their students, day in and day out, often in trying conditions and against long odds. They deserve all the support we can give them.

Best wishes for the holidays and for a bright new year.

Tom

Thomas Toch
Director, FutureEd
McCourt School of Public Policy
Georgetown University
[email protected]
@thomas_toch

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